[Gwathagor]

When Tolkien uses the word "slender" to describe the elves, I take it to mean that they were more slender than the average human in Middle-earth. Nowadays, we're pretty hard on fat people; I imagine there would have been less social pressure to be crazy skinny among people of Tolkien's generation. So, it's reasonable that Tolkien's idea of "slender" might actually be closer to our modern idea of "healthy/normal" (at least in States, where there's still a variety of opinion concerning what "normal" is). After all, Tolkien reacted very strongly against the idea that the elves were strangely thin, girly-man lookin' beings (rather like the androgynes of the films). In a letter, he says that Legolas was as tall and strong as a young tree, who was able to string and draw a great bow of the Galadhrim with ease (that's all paraphrase). The "young tree" comparison retains the idea of some slenderness, but places a great deal of emphasis on the obvious strength of the elves. The warriors, at least, aren't thin. If anything, they're probably really big and kind of scary.

However, in my opinion, very rarely should they fat. Not the healthy ones, at any rate. The description of Salgant makes it obvious that Salgant was a scumbag, before it says he was fat. Due to the close proximity of the epithets "craven" and "heavy and squat", I naturally associate the two. So, his appearance reflects his moral state.

The conclusion I draw from all this is that healthy, normal elves are neither too fat, nor too thin. Elves who ARE fat have other, more serious problems...they're either bullies or toadies, and nobody likes them anyway.

Of course, I could be totally wrong. Maybe someone else knows for sure: what DID Tolkien mean by "slender"?